A Slightly Different Take on Pakistani Gunmaking

We’ve all heard about the guys making knockoff firearms in Pakistan with vices and hand files. Well, Al-Jazeera English did a story on some of these guys, with a somewhat different focus than you usually see. Apparently, they are really concerned about government crackdowns on armsmakers (where have we heard that refrain before?), and in particular that a general transition to computer-controlled tools will put them out of business.

One the one hand, my initial reaction is that a move to CNC equipment (even if it’s being used with C-clamps) is probably a big step up for the average Pakistani firearms buyer. On the other hand, you don’t get to stay in a job for 40 years if you make a lot of guns that blow up. Some of these guys are probably amazingly talented at what they do, and it’s a shame to see those skills lost. Of course, the economically sensible course if you are that guy is to cater to a high-end market and promote your hand-made custom quality instead of making generic knockoffs like everyone else.

Also, maybe a test stand for the proof firing would be a reasonable idea.

@Nirvana…..Very interesting film. Up until sometime in the mid 1980s ads for plans to build guns from scratch were common in outdoor and “men’s” magazines. Most were designed to be made without machine tools. I have a few of them but I never got around to building one. A google search for “Scratch built AR15″ will bring you to a site describing how to build an AR lower from aluminum plate fastened together with socket head cap screws. The author’s only machine tool was a tabletop mini-mill. It looks like a straight forward project for the moderately skilled tinkerer.

This is an old video and, after it was made, the US Special Operations folks kicked al Q’s butt in Afghanistan so the director/narrator’s uninformed political comments were incorrect. He is probably correct about rhe Frontier area of Pakistan, though.

If you all have more than a passing interest in the topic there is a book that covers a fair number of designs and modifications, though it is mildly dated. “Improvised Modified Firearms: Deadly Homemade Weapons” by Truby and Minnery. While it was published by Paladin Press, it is decently done and had a lot of strange and interesting guns.

I think the topic as a whole could use another good book, with more and better pictures.

Make no mistake : not a single firearm replica there is made “only with hacksaw and files” – although some kind of an weapon (fiream?) could be fabricated with such tools, not in a million years you could make such perfect looking replicas of an Ak, Ar,mp5,etc. or a pistol only with simple tools. The guns are just fit,assembled and finished using files and other rudimentary simple tools (emery cloth, etc.), and photos of this, last operation in the process are often shown, leading to false conclusions. I suspect gunmakers there machine the parts few thousands bigger, and than they are finely finished and fitted, as you see often with pistol frames and slides. I’ve also seen pakistani websites and blogs seriously advertising their products !